


your (not so) friendly neighborhood spidergirl.

by mevies



Category: Descendants (2015), Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/F, WHEW! This took me so looonnggg. But it's here!, Yes. It's a spiderman au.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 13:30:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15195797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mevies/pseuds/mevies
Summary: These things do look more interesting in comic books than they actually are, Mal thinks as their class makes a turn and the tour guide guides them into a science lab filled with boiling beakers and scientists in lab coats walking around.Man, did she have a big storm coming...or, this is a 10k words long Spiderman AU. That's it that's the fic.





	your (not so) friendly neighborhood spidergirl.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is just one of the three billion AUs I had to finish. This was inspired by I think all three versions of the Spiderman movies, but mostly the one from 2002 with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. Some of the stuff on here are straight up from the movie, plus a few other Spiderman related things I found trolling around the internet. Um, I think that's all. I'm exhausted. I hope you guys like this, though!

“Man, this blows.” Jay commented quietly as they strolled along with the group, trailing a little behind as the tour guide explained something that Mal hadn’t been paying much attention to, “These things look so much more fun in comic books.”

“Real life isn’t like comic books, Jay.” Uma responded as quietly, but then she shrugged, “You’re right though.”

“You two, quiet.” Mal hushed out, noticing the look their teacher had sent their way, “She’s already pissed at Jay for trying to touch that artifact back there, let’s not overdo it.”

Uma and Jay quieted at that, and Mal allowed her mind to drift from whatever the tour guide was explaining now. Jay _was_ right, though. This _was_ really boring. The Museum of Natural Life and Science was not something Mal would’ve chosen to spend her Friday morning in, but she _had_ failed her latest science exam so attending this school field trip was a requirement (insisted by her mother, whom had been more than a little amused by the thought of her daughter inside a science museum for more than two hours).

These things do look more interesting in comic books than they actually are, Mal thinks as their class makes a turn and the tour guide guides them into a science lab filled with boiling beakers and scientists in lab coats walking around.

Jay’s eyes light up at the scene around them and he looks at his two best friends with a smile, “Now _this_ I can work with.”

Uma chuckles and Mal looks around curiously, and yeah, now this felt more like a comic book setting than anything.

Mal’s not really a superhero fan, though. Like, sure, she enjoys it, but she’s not a huge fan the way Jay is. The boy daydreams about what powers he’d like to have, and what he’d do if he were a superhero, and what his villains would look like – and more often than not, he would get Mal and Uma involved in his daydreaming and the girls would humor him and join him in creating an universe with him.

Mal doesn’t think she’s cut out to be a superhero. Like, not in the slightest. She’s far too moody and far too lazy to actually be of any help, and she doesn’t think that she’d be anyone’s first choice of a hero either.

“Dude, I want to be a scientist.” Jay said after a moment of silence, and Mal snorted.

“Dare to dream.”

Jay glared, “Okay, Miss F in Science, like you’re one to talk.”

“I never said I wanted to be a scientist?” Mal frowned. Jay was about to rebut, but Uma shushed them.

“Both of you suck at science, now settle.” She said with finality, and they both acquiesced for a moment before Jay started chuckling, quickly followed by Mal and Uma, not exactly loud but loud enough to gather the attention of other students, including Mal’s neighbor Evie and her friend Audrey.

Mal’s neighbor Evie who Mal had a… fascination… with.

(She’s like, in love with her, but that’s not important.)

“Are lab instructions funny to you guys?” Evie inquires as she falls into step with them, Audrey by her side. Mal’s skin tingles at the proximity of Evie to her, and she tries really hard not to allow her blush to make itself known. Evie and Mal had been neighbors for most of their lives, and Mal had never quite got used to having the girl near her. They didn’t exactly talk regularly, but enough that they weren’t strangers and enough for Evie to easily fall into conversation with Mal and her friends.

Evie was, in all senses and purposes, the girl next door, but if the girl next door was a popular cheerleader, captain of the debate team, top student and simply the most beautiful creature Mal has ever laid eyes on. Which, you know, was a lot. Evie was kind of a big deal.

“We were just laughing about how Mal sucks at science.” Uma commented, smirking. If there was anyone who knew Mal with the back of their hands, that would be Jay and Uma. And because they knew her so well, they were very well aware of the girl’s infatuation with her neighbor and took every opportunity to tease the girl in front of Evie.

Jay chuckled and Mal glared, “Jay sucks too!”

“That’s not true, Mal. I’m practically a scientist, ain’t that right, Uma?” Jay said, cockily, and Uma nodded.

“Oh, yeah, Mal like, desperately needs some Chemistry tutoring.” Uma added, sending a wink and a smirk towards her blonde best friend, watching in amusement as Mal went red at the implication and Evie and Audrey watched them curiously for a second before Evie gave Mal a small, friendly smile.

“I could tutor you if you want, Mal. It’d be no trouble at all.” Mal’s eyes flicker to Evie’s for a second, and she sees that her light brown eyes are genuine, and she gulps before she finds her voice.

“It’s okay, thank you.” When Evie’s smile seems to dimmer a little, she rushes to add, “I’ll let you know, though.”

Evie smiles and nods, and Mal notices how long her lashes are and how insanely pretty Evie’s side profile is when the girl looks back at the tour guide in front of them, smiling at a low comment Audrey had made to her that Mal couldn’t hear from where she stood.

There’s a poke in her right rib, and she turns with a glare towards the smirking pair, and Uma says, “You were staring.”

At that, Mal pointedly sends her eyes towards the floor, counting the tiles as she walks and wills the blush to leave her face.

“There are over 32,000 known species of spiders in the world.” Their guide says then, coming to a stopping point. Mal looks up from the floor just in time to avoid running into Lonnie, who had been walking just a few steps ahead of them. The girl looks at Mal over her shoulder and gives her a smile that Mal returns with a close mouthed one. “Here at our lab, with these DNA blueprints, we have begun what we once thought impossible, and we have combined the genetic information from three specific spiders and created our own genetically designed super-spiders. They have the combined abilities that come from a variety of different spiders, including precognition, web-making, camouflage, and more.  Here,” - she gestures to a glass cage divided in little squares, in which a multitude of spiders crawl about in their tiny assigned spaces. Mal shudders. She never really liked spiders, or anything that crawled in general, “we have fifteen prototypes of our super-spiders.”

“There’s fourteen.” Evie cuts in. Everyone turns to her.

“I beg your pardon?” The tour guide says, her brows scrunched up.

“One’s missing.” Evie points to one of the squares that, in fact, had no spider in.

“Oh,” The guide says, her mouth in a frown. She turns to one of the people in lab coats behind her and they mutter something to each other, the students waiting expectantly as they seem to be in heated debate for a few seconds. And then, the guide turns to them with a strained smile before she turns to their teacher and hushes something to her before walking off hurriedly with the person she had been muttering with just a few seconds ago. 

Their teacher looks perturbed, which was a rare look on the always smiling woman. She seems to sense that her expression doesn’t help the situation at all and tries, and fails, to school it, as she gives them a fake relaxed smile, “It’s just a bit of a technicality. Everything’s gonna be okay. Just stay put, and _please_ don’t touch anything.”

Seeming to sense something was wrong, the students heard the instructions and stayed in place, not daring to make one sudden move and get their head bitten off.

Evie humphs, crossing her arms to her chest, and Mal frowns, “What’s wrong?”

“Their irresponsibility is all. Honestly, this is a well-respected institution; you’d think they’d check if all of their super modified spiders were all in their right place before letting in a bunch of high school students into their lab.”

“Dude, this is _just_ like a comic book.” Jay commented excitedly to Uma, who chuckled at his wide eye excitement and shook her head before turning to Evie with a teasing glint in her eyes.

“You think something dangerous could happen?” She asks, “Say, a giant spider coming in here and eating Mal alive?” She bites the air around Mal and laughs when the girl battles her away with a frown.

“Knock it off, you’re so annoying.”

“Aw, she's sensitive.” Uma teased, and the blonde rolled her eyes. She blushed when she noticed Evie fighting back a smile from the corner of her eye. She needed to sit down and have a long conversation with Uma about manners.

This did feel a little like a moment from a comic book, Mal thinks, and that was enough for everything to fall apart. There’s suddenly a stinging pain in her right hand, and it spreads through her whole body in a matter of seconds, until it’s all she can feel. She yells out before she can stop it, and if it weren’t for the fact that she’s pretty sure she’s a second from dying, she’d be really embarrassed at the fact that every single person in the room is looking at her. Bringing her hand to her eye level, Mal gulps when she sees a red and blue spider jumping from it and scrambling away.

“I found the spider.” She manages to say before her vision is going black and she’s falling backwards to the ground. She thinks she hears Uma and Jay calling her name, and she thinks she hears Evie yelling out her name in panic, but maybe that was just her imagination.

-

Mal’s never seriously thought about being a superhero and having superpowers. Just when she needed to humor Jay and his comic book fascination. That’s one of the main things running through her mind as she opens her eyes much later that day and finds herself lying on a hospital bed, Jay, Uma and her mom standing around her, looking at her like she’d just been brought back from the dead.

There’s a tight gauze wrapped around her right hand, and Mal’s body feels sluggish and heavy and _hot,_ and even blinking seems to take a lot of effort.

The doctor, whom Mal hadn’t noticed before, steps in Mal’s eyesight and explains to her what had happened, saying that she’d been bitten by a spider but because she had been so genetically modified there had been some side effects that weren’t exactly usual but nothing too worrisome. Mal brought her hand to her eye sight, turning it from left to right trying to get a look at the bite from under the gauze, not having much luck. Before she brought her hand back down, though, she noticed that her vein in her wrist was much bigger and prominent than before, the once faded green now a glaring blue against her pale flesh.

“Wow, Jay, doesn’t this look like one of those superhero origin things from your comics?” She asked, turning her wrist to his eyesight, and the boy’s eyes widened before he nodded excitedly. “Ya think I can get powers from this?”

Before Jay could answer, the doctor chuckles, amusedly, and assures her that things like that only happened in comics and in movies, and Mal would soon be good to go. But that didn’t stop Mal from letting her mind wander, this time on her own will and not totally for Jay’s sake, and she, Uma and Jay allowed themselves into fantasizing about Mal’s superhero origin as Maleficent watched on with amusement and a few comments when necessary. 

And in reality, Mal has like, very little interest in becoming a superhero, and she knows that stuff isn’t even possible anyway, but she guesses it’s fun to fantasize about something she’ll never have to actually worry about.

…Which made the next few days pretty fucking insane.

-

The next few days pass by normally, or, well, as normal as possible. Mal’s hand is still healing and her health was slowly progressing back to normal, and when she gets up on that next Monday morning she notes, relieved, that she feels a lot better than she did the prior morning. She slowly walks towards her bathroom, sleepily rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and her yawn turns into a shriek once she walks into her bathroom and catches sight of herself in the mirror.

Her wide green eyes run over her reflection, disbelieving, and Mal has to close her mouth once she realizes she’d been staring at herself with her mouth open in shock. What in the prior night before she went to bed had been thin, plain, skinny arms exposed by her sleeping shirt were now arms with tight, defined muscles rippling through them. Mal, frowning, flexes her muscles and they tighten, veins protruding from the flesh. _What…_ Mal runs her hands over her face, noticing even her cheeks look tighter and her jaw looks more defined than ever, and she risks a chance and lifts her shirt, gasping loudly when she sees the six pack where once was a flat stomach.

_What. The. Fuck._

Mal pinches herself to see if it’s all a dream and yelps when it stings and rubs at the irritated area she pinched.

“Mal!” Her mother suddenly calls, and Mal breaks her staring contest with her own reflection to stare at the closed door, where she knew her mother was standing behind. “You okay in there, kiddo?”

“Um, yeah.” Mal replies, forcing a lighthearted tone as she winces when she realizes she’s gonna have to explain this situation to pretty much everyone that has ever seen her before the sudden transformation.

-

When she gets to school, she’s pleased to note that people seem more interested in the accident and in the bandage on her hand than anything else, which makes for Mal’s new physique to go unnoticed.

Thankfully, the questions don’t last very long, and soon enough Mal’s accident was old news. Which was great, in Mal’s opinion, since she really disliked having to talk to people and the fact that she was under everyone’s radar for about two entire periods was a little too overwhelming for the blonde. So, the moment she realized people seemed to have had enough of her for the time being, she let out a relieved breath and relaxed for the first time that day.

Of course, that was the moment Evie decided to show up to their first shared class of the day. The brunette’s eyes light up when she makes her way to her assigned desk in font of Mal and notices the blonde is already sitting there.

“Hey, Mal.” She greets, because it’s the first time they’ve seen each other since the accident. Even though the girls were neighbors, they barely ever see each other during the week – or the weekends, for that matter. Evie had a wide range of afterschool activities, which meant that when she wasn’t involved in those activities, she was either out with her friends from said activities, or she was, you know, sleeping. Mal, on the other hand, had no afterschool activities to her name, and she barely ever left her house willingly – usually, Jay would throw her over his shoulder by Uma’s command and throw her in the other girl’s car. So, yeah, Mal and Evie didn’t really see each other a lot.

Evie’s hair is down, parted in the middle equally and falling in waves over her shoulders and her makeup is light and natural, her lips shining because of the colorless lip gloss she had probably applied minutes before. Mal tries her hardest not to stare and focus on the girl’s next words, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m just fine,” She says, waving her right hand wrapped in the bandage for a second. Evie chuckles.

“I see that,” Evie jokes, “You really up for a whole day of school?”

“Already made it through two entire periods,” Mal nods seriously, “I can handle the rest of the day. I’m a survivor.”

“Oh, for sure.” Evie laughs and Mal feels her heart beating faster against her ribcage. Evie has the prettiest laugh she’s ever heard. Actually, Evie has the prettiest voice, like, ever. Evie then turns to face the front of the room as the teacher walks in, and Mal lets out a deep breath, her left hand rubbing the bandaged hand softly, trying to slow her quick pulse down.

-

Mal doesn’t see Evie again until it’s lunch time, and she hasn’t seen Uma all day either, and she’s only half thankful for it. She’s seen Jay in History, and the first thing the boy had noticed was that Mal looked different – Jay, bless his heart, was not one of the most observant people in the world, so when he guessed that Mal had gotten a new haircut, the blonde had figured letting him have that was easier than explaining something she wasn’t quite sure of herself.

She sits beside Jay and sighs when not even 10 seconds later Uma settles in front of her, her tray filled with pineapple slices and a muffin that doesn’t really look all that appetizing, and the first thing she does is look at Mal for five seconds quietly before bluntly asking if she had been juicing or taking steroids. Mal was about to say something back when Jay nudged her shoulder, prompting her to look at him curiously. He nods with his head towards somewhere ahead of them, and Mal looked in that direction to see Evie walking down the row their table is at, her tray in her hands as she’s deep in conversation with Audrey and Carlos as they make their way towards their usual table, where Mal can see that Ben and Harry are already waiting for them.

Mal, in her attempt to seem nonchalant and act natural as they approach, almost misses it when one of the boys that had been making his way from the other side of the row trips, falling forward and spilling his drink all over the floor, and consequently, in Evie’s pathway.

It’s all very sudden. Evie, who’d been involved in her conversation with Carlos and Audrey, did not notice the drink on the floor and in a blink of an eye, her food and her body went flying backwards as she slipped. And in a blink of an eye, Mal had rushed towards her, only realizing she had done so the moment Evie had fallen safely in the crook of her right arm, the tray and all of its content fallen precisely onto Mal’s left hand.

“Damn,” Evie said, breathily, her light brown eyes wide and cheeks flushed, a grin forming on her face as she looks up at Mal in sheer amazement, “Quick reflexes.”

“Um…” Is all Mal can say in return, not exactly sure of what had just transpired. Her skin is tingling, her blood pumping wildly and adrenaline rushing through her veins.

“Your eyes are green,” Evie comments softly, her light brown eyes looking deep within her own, and Mal licks her lips and nods. “I never realized that.”

Mal doesn’t know what to say in response, and it’s then that she realizes that they’ve been in that position for maybe a little too long, the blonde only barely feeling everyone’s eyes on them and hearing the hushed whispers of “did you see that”s and “holy shit”s running across the room. Standing with Evie in her arms and the tray in her hand in the middle of the cafeteria with everyone’s eyes on them after saving Evie from her fall makes Mal feel almost heroic.

“Well, then.” Evie says, seemingly snapping out of a trance, and she makes to stand from their position. Mal quickly helps her, and once Evie’s fixed her outfit she hands the girl her tray back, surprised once she notices that she had the tray on a steady grip. “Thanks, M.” Evie says, softly, a small grin on her face, and Mal nods, unable to formulate anything to say in response, and she watches as Evie resumes her walk to her usual table, a shocked Audrey and Carlos in tow.

She sits down, then, blushing, and rubs her bandaged hand softly when she feels the vein starting to pulse as Uma and Jay tease her about her heroic moment. She’s tuned in to every motion and emotion going around the room, she can hear the ruffles of pages and even the hushed conversations, can hear the movement the air around people they talk with their hands, she can hear the ins and outs of Jay and Uma’s breathing - she can hear everything. The vein pulses again.

“Mal, are you okay?” Uma asks, snapping Mal out of it. She looks at her friend, seeing her look at her best friend worriedly. “You’re breathing like, really fast. Is your hand bothering you?”

She can sense Jay’s concerned eyes on her, as well, and she licks her dry lips and breathes in and out once, then twice, and nods, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

Jay and Uma nod, but they spend the rest of the lunch hour keeping watchful eyes on a silent Mal as the blonde tried her hardest to shut the noise out before she lost it.

-

She’s still trying to cool down after lunch - her ears are still buzzing but she’s managed to get it handled - when there’s a loud crash that Mal easily recognizes as the crash of a body being pushed violently against a locker. She snaps her head to her right and watches as an annoying senior from Jay’s football team pushes one of the kids that Mal recognizes from one of her classes, and she frowns. There’s a crowd forming around the two of them, and there are people chanting “fight” over and over and Mal rolls her eyes.

The blonde is about to tell Jay to stop the fight when she remembers the boy had walked off to talk to Carlos before their next period, and she winces when she hears the boy whimpering for the senior to please not hit him over and over as the beefy senior raises his fist.

And then, with the blink of an eye, Mal’s small left hand is wrapped around the boy’s much bigger fist, standing between him and the whimpering boy he had just tried to hit.

There’s silence around them as everyone watches the scene before them in complete shock – Mal, one of the smallest girls in her year, standing up to one of the tallest, bulkiest seniors and actually holding her own. Uma looks at her in amazement, her face a mix of pride and astonishment; and Mal only barely catches sight of Evie in her periphery, the girl’s mouth ajar in amazement, something shining in her brown eyes that Mal doesn’t quite know what to make of. Mal turns her full attention to the boy, then, and watches as his face goes on a journey from stunned to angry.

“I don’t hit girls.” He spits angrily, yanking his fist free from Mal’s grasp. Mal can sense his heartbeat getting faster, and she can sense his discomfort of having a younger girl being stronger than him. She almost lets herself give him a cocky grin, but the boy behind her letting out a short breath makes her come back to her senses.

“And what makes you think you can hit anybody?” She spits back, and she can hear every single person in the crowd holding their breath. The bulky boy in front of her gulps, and he looks around the crowd, clearly looking for his friends’ support, but they all avoid eye contact, obviously embarrassed of being associated with him. He’s nervous, Mal can sense it, and he lets out a fake, breathless laugh, shaking his head.

“Get out of my way, bitch.” He stammers as he pushes her out of the way, and then he raises an open palm to smack the still whimpering kid. But before his hand could make contact with the boy and faster than Mal ever thought possible, she grabbed his hand, turning him around before she kicked the back of his knee in milliseconds.

The boy yelps in surprise and then in pain as his knees crash against the floor, and there’s a hush of silence as everyone watches in astonishment for a second, before there are cheers and applause and everyone’s cheering Mal on. She doesn’t even blink before Uma has her hand on a tight grip, pulling her as Jay, who had gotten there before the grand finale pushes them through the mass of people, his eyes wide.

Uma doesn’t say anything for a while, and Jay’s studying her with concerned eyes, and Mal doesn’t know how to feel. On one hand, she’s proud of herself for what she did. On the other, she’s extremely freaked out at what she’s now seemingly capable of.

They’re halfway through the empty school parking lot when Uma stops and turns to her.

“What the hell was that?”

“I…” Mal trails off, takes a deep breath, and tries again, “I don’t know.”

Jay and Uma study her for a moment, before they shake their heads and seem to accept the answer and let the subject go – well, not really. They don’t ask her what’s wrong again, but they do brag and cheer and hype her up for what she did, proud of their friend for pulling that stunt and coming out alive – and like a complete badass.

That night as she brushes her teeth and stares at herself in the mirror, she decides that today was just a weird day and everything was going back to normal by tomorrow.

-

Only…

The next morning, as Mal’s showering very early in the morning before school, having awoken before her mother and before the sun, apparently, she accidentally hits her right wrist where the bite was supposed to be and braces herself for the uncomfortable pain – only it never comes, and she frowns as she runs her hands through the bandage, trying to feel anything and coming up empty. She presses a little harder down on where she knew she had been bitten, and doesn’t feel anything – not even a little sore.

Knowing she shouldn’t but too curious to care, she carefully and slowly begins to unwrap the bandage from her wrist. Once it’s done, she stares at her wrist, more specifically to where the spider bite was supposed to be – supposed, because Mal can’t see a trace of it anywhere. She brings her wrist closer to her eyelevel, squinting as she tries to make out anything, but only seeing clear, smooth and healthy skin.

“What the fuck?” She whispers. She touches, pokes, presses the skin - and nothing. Good as new.

Deciding she was done showering, Mal closes the water with her left hand as she looks at her wrist with a confused frown on her face, not really looking at where she’s stepping, causing her to trip on her own feet and lose her balance, and she closes her eyes and braces herself for the impact at the same time as she grabs on the nearest wall with her left hand, her right arm flailing back as she ungracefully flies backwards.

And then, three things happen:

One: She doesn’t fall. At the last minute, her newly acquired reflexes kick in and she’s able to get her balance back before she meets the floor.

Two: Something icky flew from her right hand. Like, from inside it. She stares in complete terror at the now white, gross whatever that was stuck on the wall across from her, completely freaked out by it but also wanting to get a better look at it - which brings us to number three.

Three: The hand she had used to grab onto the wall to regain her balance had stuck there. Like, her flat palm was completely stuck to the wall. She tries to curl her fingers, to pull it back, but it’s useless – her hand is totally stuck. Frowning, she brings her other hand to the wall and tries to pull her left hand from the wall, but she groans when she realizes she had both hands stuck to the wall.

“C’mon, no, don’t do this to me,” She groans to no one in particular as she tries to yank her hands from the wall more insistently. Sighing, she tries to peel her hands off by bringing both feet up the wall and yanking as hard as she could, but she only groans loudly when she realizes now her feet were also stuck. She sighs more resolutely, counting to three, and then she tries to peel herself off the wall in one go, only managing to free one of her hands.

With one of her hands and both feet stuck on the wall, she studies her hand closely and notices – are those _micro thorns? –_ little hair-like things growing on her fingertips.

_What. The. Fuck._

Suddenly, her mind flashes back to the question she had jokingly asked Jay while she was in the hospital bed, and Mal thinks about that moment for a few seconds as she forces her body to relax and eyes the wall studiously. Then, slowly and carefully, as a test, she brings her freed palm a little higher up than the other, and she licks her lips when she feels the micro-things that had been growing on her fingertips stick to the wall of her bathroom. Breathing slowly, she carefully and slowly pulls her other hand back, relieved when it peels off the wall easily this time. She brings her hand higher up than the other, and then she repeats the process with her feet – and slowly, and carefully, Mal’s crawling up the wall.

It’s only when she’s almost meeting the ceiling that she realizes the situation she was in; and she begins to laugh, almost manically, when she notices that she’s still naked and her hair was dripping.

And, of course, that she had just crawled on the wall as if it was the ground.

-

After that occurrence, Mal starts wondering if she should maybe mention something to Jay and Uma. At school, things are pretty normal. Well, not really, but it’s manageable. She catches people looking at her from time to time, but it’s nothing she can’t control. Jay brags about Mal all the time to whomever he can, and Uma shakes her head but smiles at Mal whenever they catch Jay telling people Mal could kick their ass. She finds herself debating on whether or not she should tell their friends about what she’s capable of doing, now, but then she remembers that in all those comic books that Jay read, they had kept it all as a secret from the people around them, even friends, to keep them safe – which is something that brings a whole different matter to Mal’s mind.

Over the next few days, Mal finds herself running her mind through a list of pros and cons of being a superhero. It’s not like it’s always been her dream or anything, or even any sort of a plan, but Mal guesses that she has these powers for a reason. She knows enough about Jay’s comics to know that these things don’t _just_ happen. And she has the means and the powers to help people, and she guesses she would feel pretty useless if she let it all go to waste because she’s too lazy to help people out.

It’s been a week and she decides that maybe she should tell Uma or Jay about it, and she wonders if they’ll tell her she’s insane, wonders if they’ll understand. She just has this feeling deep inside her ever since she stood in that hallway in front of all those students, holding that bully’s fist, and she can’t control herself. She needs to do something, and she’s pretty sure that she’s made her decision.

Superheroes have powers and the means to help people, and last she’s checked, she falls right into those categories. With a new found resolve, Mal gets up from her bed, where she’d been lying on her back and staring at the ceiling as she debated with herself, and she runs a list through her head of things she knows she’ll definitely need if she’s actually going through with this: she’s going to need an alias, and definitely a suit. Maybe even a side-kick, but she can think about that later.

Mal opens her closet, immediately going through her clothes, trying to find any ideas for a good superhero suit or any sort of design, but she comes up empty when she realizes that wearing jeans, hoodies and leather jackets while doing superhero-y things around the city wasn’t very practical. She sighs in defeat and stands in front of her open closet, when suddenly something catches her eye inside of it. Under a pile of hoodies and jackets, there’s a deep red hoodie that Mal knows to belong to Jay. Well, used to belong to him but the boy had given it to her when he noticed how the girl liked to steal it from his closet when she came over to his house.

Mal had always liked it because the material was soft and comfortable and it was big on her small frame, and the blonde pulls the hoodie from her closet, brings it to her nose and sniffs it, nodding when she doesn’t notice anything unpleasant about its smell. It just smells like laundry soap and Mal’s closet – 20 minutes on Mal’s window under the sun would solve that last part.

Mal walks over to her window, opening it for the first time that week, and lays the shirt on the windowsill to air it out a bit. Once she’s done that, she looks up, and her heart skyrockets. Mal is very thankful to the architects that designed her house and the Grimhilde’s residence, and also like, fate and the universe, because Evie’s room is right across from Mal’s, their windows symmetrically aligned to each other, which meant Mal had the perfect view of Evie’s bedroom. Which sounds creepy, but it’s not like that – Mal doesn’t like, _watch_ Evie or anything, she tries her best to respect the girl’s privacy just like she’s absolutely sure Evie respects hers.

And it’s not even that Evie’s doing anything remotely interesting. Mal can clearly see that Evie’s desk is positioned right in front of her window, and she’s bent over and furrowing her eyebrows as she focuses on what Mal assumes is her homework.

Evie’s hair is up in a messy bun, and Mal notices that the girl is wearing a grey sweatshirt with their school’s name on it. And, well, Mal’s never actually seen Evie in a sweatshirt before, so she allows herself to look maybe a little while longer than it was probably polite, but Mal just can’t help it. Evie has always captivated her attention, always made her feel some sort of way – almost as if she was in a spell, or something like that. Mal amuses herself, then, when she thinks that maybe Evie was her super weakness.

The moment Mal realizes that she’s just standing in front of her window, staring at Evie like a stalker, is the moment that Evie decides to look up curiously when she gets the feeling that she's being watched, and Mal is too slow to duck or jump away from her window before Evie’s eyes meet hers, so she just stands there and her green eyes meet Evie’s brown ones. Evie doesn’t seem perturbed by the attention, instead, she gives Mal a soft smile and waves, and Mal feels her heart kick starting at full speed against her chest.

She licks her dry lips and raises her hand, giving Evie a small wave of her own in return.

-

That Friday night finds Mal, Uma and Jay at the local supermarket, doing some very important shopping for their movie night, the blonde dressed in the red hoodie paired up with a dark blue – almost black – pair of leggings that she found deep in the confines of her closet – seriously, the things she finds there? Mal didn’t even know she owned most of the clothes she found.

Mal figured that if they were leaving their house to go into the city at night, she might as well try and break in her superhero persona if the chance ever came.

They’re standing in one of the aisles as Uma looks for her favorite chips when Jay notices the shirt.

“Wow, you still have that?” He asks, surprised, and Mal looks at him and then down at her shirt and nods. “It’s been years since I saw you wearing it.”

“Oh. Yeah, I found it the other day and remembered how comfortable it was,” She half lies, wanting desperately to just tell him and Uma of the actual reason why she has that shirt on.

“I wouldn’t know, you actually never let me wear it when it was mine.” Jay joked, chuckling, and Mal is about to rebut when there’s a loud bang in the front of the store, and a man clad in black clothes and waving a gun in the air walks in, readily pointing the gun at the closest cashier and Jay and Uma react quickly, running to the back of the store and hiding behind an aisle. Mal stays rooted to her spot, watching the cashier empty the cash register and the man take the money, not even bothering to look around the store, where the few people that were trying to hide themselves from the man were fearfully watching the exchange. Mal can faintly hear Jay and Uma hissing at her to get back there with them, but she ignores them. The man runs out, and right away the cashier pulls out his phone to call the police and report the robbery.

Mal’s heart is beating fast against her chest, the buzzing in her ears getting louder and louder as the adrenaline rushes through her veins, and Mal counts to three before she makes up her mind.

She runs after the man.

She can hear the people calling after her in disbelief and astonishment as she runs out of the store. She sees the man way down the street, running as fast as he can as the sirens come closer and closer, and Mal takes a deep breath before pulling the hoodie over her head and over her face, and stars to run after him.

He’s pretty fast, but with her powers, Mal’s way faster, and in the blink of an eye, Mal’s close to him in no time, staying in the shadows so she’s not noticed by the criminal. She watches as he runs into an abandoned warehouse, and Mal doesn’t even hesitate to follow him inside, chasing him as he runs up the stairs, way too ahead of her, now, that he doesn’t realize he’s being followed.

When Mal notices that he’s maybe way too ahead of her, she whips out her wrists and shoots out her web, which carries her immediately to the ceiling. She jumps onto one of the stair rails above him and sits, kicking her legs back and forth silently as she watches him stop on the floor under her, listening to the police sirens that are obviously coming closer and closer, and he appears to be on edge. He then leaves out a laugh, and Mal raises an eyebrow at that, deciding it was time to get cocky. She clicks her tongue loudly enough for him to hear and relishes when he jumps.

“Who’s there?”  He whips around, gun in his hand.

“The same person who’s been following you ever since you left the store,” Mal says, and tries her best not to smile when she sees the panic on his face. “You know, you really need to learn to watch your back.”

“Show yourself right fucking now!” The man yells, and Mal feels a thrill at noticing the fear in the man’s voice.

“Now that’s not a very nice way to talk to someone, is it? I was just trying to give you some pointers.” Mal says as she lowers herself quietly behind him, a secret smirk playing on the corner of her lips as she notices the man tremble in front of her as her voice got closer.

“Who the fuck are you?” He asks in a shaky whisper, and Mal clears her throat pointedly. He turns around quickly - and just as quickly Mal shoots her web at his hand, sending his gun flying out of it and pinning him to the nearest wall. Another blink and his other hand is pinned to the wall by Mal’s web as well, and he looks at both of his hands and then at the figure walking towards him, face hidden by a hoodie and the dark and his eyes widen in fear.

“I’m Spidergirl,” she says, and then as an afterthought: “Bitch.”

The man looks like he’s going to pass out from fear, and at a closer look, Mal realizes that she’s seen this man before.

A few weeks ago while she was at Uma’s house, the two girls were sitting on the floor by the coffee table as they worked on a school project in the living room as Ursula, Uma’s mom, watched the news, and their attention had turned to the television screen as the news anchor had reported that the man that was standing in front of her now in this very moment was wanted for murder, robbery, arson and, to top it all off so his place in hell was assured, rape. And she remembers Ursula shaking her head and telling the two girls that if they ever saw that man, they should run the other way.

Mal licks her lips. _Well._

“I know who you are.” she says, the disgust at this man and his crimes seeping into her voice, and he looks like he’s about to pass out. “I know what you do.”

“Please...please… don’t hurt me.” Mal feels sick to her stomach, because she’s pretty sure that this is something this man has heard before. And that thought brings her rage. Rage like she’s never felt before. The sirens are right below them. She wants to hurt him for what he’s done, but part of her knows she shouldn’t. She shouldn’t bring herself down to his level. So she calmly considers her options, ignoring his cries. His panic is well deserved.

On a quick decision, Mal rips the webbing from his wrists and frees him from the wall, and the man stands there for a second, rubbing his wrists, not knowing what to do. Mal doesn’t give him a lot of time to figure it out, though, because in a heartbeat she’s grabbing his arm in a strong grip and pulling him up with her towards the doors of the roof. The man cries out for her to let him go, trying with all of his might to free himself from her seemingly inhuman strength, but she’s a woman on a mission and she’d very much like to get this over with and just let the police handle this man while she goes back to her friends.

As they reach the roof, Mal pulls him towards the edge of the roof where the police cars have parked in front of the warehouse, and the man gulps. “What the fuck are you gonna do? Are you gonna _throw_ me?”

Mal glares, “Shut up.” She says, and then, “I’m not a disgusting murderer like you.”

After saying that, she releases him from her grip, but before he could move or do anything, she shoots her webs at him again, sticking him to the edge of the roof, and he groans loudly at that. Because of that, she decides that she needs to make sure he’s really stuck, and she shoots her web at his feet, gluing him to his place. She smirks at his discomfort.

“Can’t say it was nice to meet you, and I wish you all the worst.” Mal rushes out before she brings her thumb and her pointer to her mouth and whistles loudly to grab the cops’ attention. When they look up at the sound, Mal isn’t there anymore, but instead, she’s hanging onto the top of an adjacent building, already making her way back towards the supermarket as she jumps from building to building, the adrenaline still taking over her actions.

-

Uma and Jay are standing in front of the supermarket, waiting for their friend with fear and worry etched on their faces, and Mal walks slowly down the sidewalk, preparing herself for what’s about to happen. Soon enough, both pair of dark eyes lay on her approaching figure, and Mal is only half relieved when she notices they look more scared than angry at her.

“Mal, what the fuck was that?” Uma cries as she rushes to meet Mal halfway, pulling the girl in a bone crushing hug that Mal returns. Jay catches up to them and when Uma releases her, he pulls Mal to him in a side hug as he looks down at her and checks for any visible injury. When he comes up empty, he pulls her even closer to him and hugs her with both arms.

“Don’t you ever do that again.” He says quietly, voice filled with emotion, and Mal feels her chest tighten at the concern in his voice. She needs to tell them.

“Guys,” She says quietly, freeing herself from Jay’s hold, “I need to talk to you guys about something.”

-

She tells them everything that same night. Instead of having a movie night in the living room of Mal’s house, they’re in Mal’s room, Mal sitting on her computer chair facing her bed where Jay and Uma were sitting, listening with avid attention as Mal tells them everything that’s happened to her – from that Monday morning after the accident up until earlier that same night. At first, they don’t seem to believe her, but as she goes further and further into her story, they realize that there’s no way Mal could make those things up – and there sure as hell was no way that Mal, who prior to that barely ever even showed up to gym class, could willingly chase after a criminal – and catch up to him, even.

Mal even demonstrates her powers – she shoots her web with a flick of her wrist at the ceiling and Jay gasps and whoops as Uma watches, jaw dropped, as Mal flies up to the ceiling and then sticks her hands to it and begins to crawl from the ceiling to the wall and then back to the floor.

It takes them a few minutes – Uma a little longer than Jay, but they get used to it and believe her wholeheartedly and they spend the rest of the night talking about Mal’s new superpowers and asking her to retell them about her very first criminal bust.

-

A week goes by since that night, and the newspapers are running wild with speculations and curiosity about who was that mysterious being who helped the police to catch one of the most wanted criminals in the entire city and fled the scene before anyone could thank them. Evidence on the scene – and, well, the criminal, revealed a spider’s web-like secretion holding him in place, and over fifteen witnesses that had been near and around the place where the scene took place all seemed to agree on one thing: that they had all seen a suspicious figure flying, or _jumping,_ from building to building through the roofs in high speed that same night. 

No one had enough evidence of who that could be, and people had decided that their faceless hero was definitely superhuman, and speculation had been rampant during that entire week, possible nicknames running wild here and there, until one of the most popular newspapers of the city prints out the name on the front page, on a headline that announced an exclusive interview with the infamous criminal, who had given them firsthand the information they were all looking for: _“She said her name was Spidergirl.”_

After that interview where the criminal told the lucky journalist everything he could remember, things went pretty crazy – finding out the hero was a she, and that she had a name, and that she really _did_ have powers, Mal was overwhelmed by the amount of attention she – well, Spidergirl was getting.

She comments about it as they sit in Uma’s room, newspapers spread around the room and each of their laptops open in articles about Spidergirl they’re yet to read.

“It’s fucking awesome, though.” Jay comments as he opens another tab, “Your life’s like… a real life comic book.”

Mal chuckles and shakes her head, “I’m glad I can be your source of entertainment, Jay.”

“Yeah, this is cool and all, but I got something to discuss,” Uma says, turning the newspaper she was holding to them and pointing to a picture of Spidergirl, zoomed in as she jumped from one building to the other, caught by a civilian that was printed on the front page. “This outfit is trash.”

“Hey! I gave Spidergirl that shirt!” Jay protests before Mal could say anything, and Uma rolls her eyes.

Mal has to agree with Uma, though. As much as she likes that hoodie, it is definitely not something that a hero should call a suit.

It takes a few days, but Uma managed to get her mom to sew together a suit for Mal. When Mal asked, Uma had told her she told her mother she had wanted to get her Halloween outfit started in advance, knowing that everyone would want to get a Spidergirl costume and wanting to be the one standing out because she had the best one – because, well, the design she had presented her mother with was the actual design they had thought together, using numerous of Jay’s comic books as reference. Ursula didn’t question how Uma had gotten that design, having no doubt in her mind that her daughter probably had her connections, and soon enough, the outfit was done.

Mal tries it out at Uma’s house on a day that her mother wasn’t home, and when she steps in front of the mirror, she gasps at what she sees. The suit was a hundred times better than she ever expected it would be. It’s taut against her skin, her muscles rippling from beneath the red and blue combination of the material covering her body. There’s a black spider on her chest, its thin, long legs turning into lines that run across her breasts, down to her stomach area and up to her shoulders.

She whistles.

“Wait, you’re not done yet.” Uma says, and Mal turns to watch her grabbing something from her bed, “Can you put your hair in a low ponytail?”

Mal nods, complying, and Jay hands her a hairband. Uma steps closer to her, bunching up the ponytail with one hand and the other pulling a mask over Mal’s face. The two girls struggle with it for a moment, but quickly figure it out.

“Okay, now you’re done.” Uma nods once, and steps away from the mirror as Mal turns to look at herself. Now, every inch of her body is covered in a skin-tight suit, including her head, and most importantly, her face. The full-face mask, which sported creepy, big eyes, covered her entire face, and Mal studied herself for a moment with the full suit.

With her muscles and curves outlined, Mal thinks she looks… kind of hot. Well, not kind of. She looks hot. Like, enough for a certain brown eyed girl to look at her twice.

Or, you know, whatever.

“This is the outfit.” She says to her companions, and by the huge, excited smiles on their faces, she thinks they agree.

She feels like an actual superhero, now.

-

Mal starts her deeds small – she mostly spends her time stopping robberies at ATMs and grocery stores. But as soon as her popularity increases, so does the danger rate of her deeds. Soon, she’s stopping murder attempts, helping people escape from burning buildings, you name it. Spidergirl, then, becomes a local hero and icon, and little kids are wearing t-shirts with her symbol, and little girls everywhere are talking about how they want to be like her when they grow up. Boys at her school go on and on about how hot Spidergirl is, which makes Jay kind of mad but Mal doesn’t pay them any mind. Because, well, as flattering as it is to have people think she’s hot, there is only really one person’s opinion that really matters and interests Mal.

She spends most of her time, sometimes even during the times she’s saving people and stopping fires and etcetera, wondering what Evie thinks of Spidergirl. She wants to know if Evie thinks Spidergirl is as cool as everyone is always talking about, or if she’s one of those people who turn their noses up and call Spidergirl just another product slash brand in a society run by capitalism, or whatever it was that one of the annoying hipster girls in their English class had started to say before the whole class, led by Jay and Uma, had started to boo her, or if she just doesn’t care about Spidergirl at all.

She finds out when she crashes into Evie in the hallway after her History class one day, mind running wild about, well, Evie, and sends the girl’s books flying to the ground.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” Mal says, well, more like _yells_ before she can stop herself, and she winces as she feels the blush starting to form on her face as she dives down to pick up Evie’s stuff before even bothering with her own – because, honestly, she can’t be bothered to care about school when she can crawl up the walls and jump from buildings.

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s okay.” Evie assures her in a distracted tone, and Mal hands her her things. Evie looks like there’s something on her mind, and the blonde really hopes that she’s not like, freaked out or perturbed by Mal’s outburst a few seconds ago.

“No, seriously, I’m sorry,” She insists, why, she isn’t sure, but she wants to try and make sure that Evie doesn’t like, think she’s weird or anything like that. She feels the very familiar Evie-induced blush running up her face, and she has to really stop herself from making a complete fool out of herself in front of the most beautiful, smartest, cutest girl that Mal has ever seen. Evie is one of the smartest girls in the entire school – hell, there’s a reason why she’s the captain of the debate team -, and Mal honestly could spend days on end listening to Evie talk about virtually anything. Not only because her voice is like, _extremely_ attractive, but also because she’s crazy eloquent and, as stated before, _smart._

But, you know, none of this is relevant, but Mal’s in love and can’t stop her brain from getting sidetracked when Evie is involved, so.

She shakes her head and looks down, trying to gather her thoughts, and it’s then that she notices the copy of a magazine that had gone unnoticed when she was scrambling to pick up Evie’s things sitting on top of the Biology book in Evie’s arms - a magazine Mal knew had a picture of Spidergirl printed on the cover. Mal sees this as the universe giving her an opportunity to finally find out what Evie thought of the city’s new hero.

(Or, you know, to seek validation from her crush.)

“Can’t really go anywhere without hearing about her nowadays, huh?” She says. Evie furrows her eyebrows in confusion, and Mal gestures to the magazine on top of her books in her arms. Evie’s eyes light up in realization.

“I know,” Evie says, “I think she’s actually kind of fascinating.”  

“Really?” Mal asks, trying to keep it cool and collected, fighting really hard not to beam at those words.

“She’s just so… mysterious.” Evie explains, “The whole thing is intriguing – this girl obviously is like, some science genius or prodigy, because I mean, there’s no such thing as superpowers. You know I love science and all that, so the whole thing, from a scientific point of view, is just fascinating.” And then, she pauses, “And, you know, Spidergirl is also really cool. She’s a girl that willingly goes around the city in disguise and fights crime and has a whole secret life that no one knows about. It’s all very fascinating.”

“So, you’re a fan?” Mal asks, because she needs to know.

Evie licks her lips before she purses them, considering Mal’s question. The blonde is exactly three seconds away from dying when Evie seems to have found her answer, “I think she’s really cool and I like her, but I don’t know if that necessarily means I’m a fan. I’ll have to get back to you on that one.” She pauses, and her light brown eyes adopt an air of mischief, “Maybe I can tell you when I figure it out, if you want.”

“Um,” Is Mal’s response, because she’s not quite sure what that’s supposed to mean. Evie stares at her for a moment, her eyebrow quirked, and she chuckles when she realizes Mal did not catch what she was hinting at.

“Can you give me your number, Mal? Or do I have to get it from Uma or Jay?” Oh. _Oh._ Okay. Uh. Um. Mal opens her mouth to reply, but then she closes it when she realizes she doesn’t know what to say. Does she even own a phone? She suddenly can’t remember.

And, like, Mal has stared down many criminals and she’s not exactly someone who you would peg for being nervous around people – but, you know, this is _Evie._ Asking for her number.

_Her number!_

Realizing she had lost herself in her thoughts, again, she breaks from her Evie induced trance once she notices the girl watching her expectantly. The girl chuckles, and giving Mal a look that she can’t quite figure out, she holds out her hand, and Mal blinks. Evie gives her a tiny smirk, “Phone?” and Mal, her mouth open in a tiny ‘o’ in realization, taps her back pockets once before she feels the form of her oversized iPhone on her right pocket. She fishes it out, and hands it to Evie. The brunette looks at her phone and then at Mal and her smirk becomes more prominent as she turns the screen to Mal, and Mal looks down at the screen dumbly, realizing she had handed Evie a locked phone.

And honestly, if this didn’t prove that Mal just didn’t think straight (ha) whenever Evie was involved, she didn’t know what could. If it had been anyone else, Mal would never allow them to even look at her phone; much less unlock it for them willingly.

But, you know, since this was Evie, the only thing that happened was Mal wordlessly tapping her screen, focusing really hard not to punch the screen and break it – which was something that she had done before, and she doubts her mom would be as understanding as the first three times it happened. Soon enough, Mal’s phone was unlocked, and Evie chuckled as she turned the screen back to her, opening Mal’s contacts app and beginning to save her number to her phone.

Mal can barely contain herself when she sees Evie opening the camera app and snapping a quick selfie blowing a kiss to the camera. (Evie wanted her dead. She did. There was no reasonable explanation.)

“There you go.” Evie says airily, handing Mal her phone back and booping her nose as she grins, “Text me when you figure out how words work, okay?” She winks, and _again,_ if it were _anyone else-_

If it were anyone else, Mal would be doing whatever the opposite of sitting down on a bench to try and regain control of her senses is. Mal shakes her head at herself, thanking Jesus and all of the saints that Uma or Jay were nowhere near her and did not watch the interaction, knowing they would never let her hear the end of it. It was bad enough that _Mal herself_ was present in that interaction to watch her being a complete idiot in front of Evie. (Well, sort of present. She kind of blacked down a bit back there.)

Mal unlocks her phone, staring completely speechless at the recently saved contact with Evie’s name on it, decorated by a blue heart and a. blowing. kiss. Emoji. And not only the blowing kiss Emoji, but the one with the _HEART_ and the _WINK._ And seriously, Mal is now convinced that Evie is trying to send her into a cardiac arrest.

Mal has no fucking clue how she’s managed to stop criminals and fires and fight crime and everything else when all it takes for Mal to lose her shit, and you know, confidence and also self-respect and dignity a little bit, is for a certain brunette to well, _breathe_ near Mal.

But, as she had previously decided, Evie was her super weakness, the kind that makes her act like she’s never learned words were a thing, or that air was a thing that she needed to, you know, live.  

And it’s kind of scary, she realizes, the way she feels for Evie. She knows that if super villains tried to use her against Mal, she would drop everything in a heartbeat to save her, the rest of the world be damned.

Not that she like, knows any super villains or anything, but she knows enough about Jay’s favorite comic books that it allows her mind to go into overdrive before she shakes her head at herself.

 _Real life isn’t like comic books, Jay,_ Uma had said on that fateful day.

 _She was right,_ Mal thinks to herself as she taps the messaging icon on Evie’s contact, _real life’s much better._

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! And don't forget to follow me @ evies-grimhildes on tumblr :)


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